The Power of Positive Thinking

Next in my “Power of Humanity” series this week, I am looking at the power of positive thinking, something that I don’t take enough time to do.

Positive thinking can best be defined as optimism, or a technique for changing your attitude in order to foster optimism.

It’s All In Your Head

More true than you know… optimism is a choice, sometimes a difficult one, that must be made in your mind. A choice to look past the bad things that are going on and the stress that is all around you and choosing to see the good, the light of the day rather than the shadows and darkness. Positive thinking is a mental attitude where you allow yourself to grasp words, images and see the good believing in favorable results in whatever you are doing. That in turn, leads to feeling good about yourself and giving you more strength to think positively. It can become a (good) chain reaction.

Winston S. Churchill said in his book “My Early Life“: “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

No truer words were ever spoken.

How Can Positive Thinking Change Your Life?

Optimism comes from the Latin word optimus, which means ‘best’. Those that are optimistic are always looking for the best in a situation and expecting good things to happen. It is a belief, but no more different from that of a pessimist who believes that the bad things will happen.

If you believe that good things will happen, then they will. Perhaps not today, or even tomorrow, but eventually. They may not be the things you were hoping would happen, but if you have that positive attitude, then you will see the good things that are happening rather than dwell on the bad.

Having positive thought or optimism really comes down to how you talk to yourself, believing that your actions will have positive results and it also requires (and creates) a level of trust in yourself that such actions will be positive. An optimist doesn’t believe in ‘luck’ but rather that they make their own luck. That if you work hard on something and persevere, good things will come of it. They realize that the positive events in their life are not simply flukes, but are tangible results of the inevitable progress of their own actions.

In studies, positive thinking has actually shown to decrease depression, decrease stress and increase your life span. In the link in the previous sentence, the researches state that

It’s unclear why people who engage in positive thinking experience these health benefits. One theory is that having a positive outlook enables you to cope better with stressful situations…

Which makes complete sense. Stress has been shown to have devastating physical effects on the body as well as the mind. Keeping a positive mind, focuses on the good and the less stressful points in life.

Two Words, Two Results

Optimist: A person who looks at the good in life and focuses on the positive, expecting favorable results. They believe that their actions will eventually have good results.

Pessimist: A person who blames themselves for the bad things that happen in their lives and thinks that one mistake means more will inevitably come. They believe that positive events are flukes.